The Jerusalem Motets of William Byrd

The ancient corpus of Matins responsories that accompanies the readings from the book of Tobias this week includes one that is actually not Biblical at all, although the verse with which it is sung comes from the book of Judith. (It is repeated on some of the weekdays, including today.)

R. Tribulationes civitatum audivimus quas passae sunt, et defecimus; timor et hebetudo mentis cecidit super nos et super liberos nostros: ipsi montes nolunt recipere fugam nostram; * Domine, miserere. V. Peccavimus cum patribus nostris, injuste egimus, iniquitatem fecimus. Domine, miserere.

R. We have heard of the tribulations of the cities which they have suffered, and we have grown faint; fear and dullness of mind have fallen upon us and upon our children; the very mountains will not receive our flight; o Lord, have mercy. V. We have sinned with our fathers we have done unjustly, we have committed iniquity; o Lord, have mercy.

Folio 98v of the Antiphonary of Compiègne, also known as the antiphonary of Charles the Bald, 860-77 AD, with the texts of three antiphons from the book of Job, six responsories and three antiphons from the book of the Tobias, and the first two from the book of Judith, the second of which is Tribulationes civitatum; all of these are used in the month of September. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 17436) – The original corpus for Tobias included only these six responsories, which cover the first two nocturns of Sunday Matins; responsories for the third nocturn, including Tribulationes civitatum, were usually supplied from those assigned to other books.

This was beautifully set as a motet by the composer William Byrd, but with modifications to the text, which is no longer structured as a responsory. The words “Domine, ad te sunt oculi nostri, ne pereamus” are inserted from one of the responsories of the following month which accompany the books of the Maccabees, and the last part is completely changed, also borrowed in part from one of the Maccabee responsories.

Tribulationes civitatum audivimus quas passae sunt, et defecimus; Domine, ad te sunt oculi nostri, ne pereamus; timor et hebetudo mentis cecidit super nos et super liberos nostros: ipsi montes nolunt recipere fugam nostram; Domine, miserere. Nos enim pro peccatis nostris haec patimur; aperi oculos tuos, Domine, et vide afflictionem nostram. (We have heard of the tribulations of the cities which they have suffered, and we have grown faint; o Lord, to Thee do we look, lest we perish; fear and dullness of mind have fallen upon us and upon our children; the very mountains will not receive our flight; o Lord, have mercy; for we suffer these things for our sins, open Thy eyes, o Lord, and see our affliction.)

This is one of three works known collectively as ‘the Jerusalem motets’, written by the Catholic Byrd in response to the intensification of anti-Catholic persecution in England under Queen Elizabeth I. The “city” in each case is the Catholic Church, and the pleas to the Lord for mercy are made collectively, in the plural, which it to say, on behalf of all the persecuted. The second motet is purely Biblical, taken from Isaiah 64, 9-10.

Ne irascaris, Domine, satis, et ne ultra memineris iniquitatis nostrae; ecce, respice, populus tuus omnes nos. Civitas Sancti tui facta est deserta, Sion deserta facta est, Jerusalem desolata est. – Be not very angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our iniquity: behold, see, we are all thy people. The city of thy sanctuary is become a desert, Sion is made a desert, Jerusalem is desolate.

The third, Vide, Domine, has only a few words taken directly from a liturgical text, “veni, Domine, et noli tardare”, from one of the responsories of Advent.

Vide, Domine, afflictionem nostram, et in tempore maligno ne derelinquas nos. Plusquam Hierusalem facta est deserta civitas electa; gaudium cordis nostri conversum est in luctum, et jocunditas nostra in amaritudinem conversa est; sed veni, Domine, et noli tardare, et revoca dispersos in civitatem tuam. Da nobis, Domine, pacem tuam diu desideratam, pax sanctissima, et miserere populi tui gementis et flentis, Domine. Deus noster. – See our affliction, o Lord, and do not forsake us in the evil time. More than Jerusalem, the chosen city hath become desert; the joy of our heart is turned to mourning, and our delight to bitterness; but come, o Lord, and tarry not, and recall the scattered ones into thy city. Grant us, O Lord, thy peace, long desired, (o most holy peace), and have mercy on thy mourning, weeping people, o Lord our God.

Byrd’s collaborator Thomas Tallis was a generation older; having grown up in the Catholic Church before the many woes inflicted upon it by the impiety and avarice of the English monarchs, he remained a Catholic all his life. From the liturgical texts of the same period, he drew the words of one of the most famous motets of all time, very much on the same theme, the Spem in alium for forty voices. In the Office, it is sung as a responsory with the book of Esther in the last week of September, but it is another ecclesiastical composition, not an exact citation of any Biblical text.

Spem in alium nunquam habui praeter in te, Deus Israel, qui irasceris et propitius eris, et omnia peccata hominum in tribulatione dimittis. Domine Deus, creator caeli et terrae, respice humilitatem nostram. – I have never had hope in any other but in Thee, o God of Israel, who grow wroth, and art merciful, and forgivest all the sins of men in (their) tribulation. O Lord God, creator of heaven and earth, look upon our lowliness.

Laetare Sunday 2021

Qui confídunt in Dómino, sicut mons Sion: non commovébitur in aeternum, qui hábitat in Jerúsalem. V. Montes in circúitu ejus, et Dóminus in circúitu pópuli sui, ex hoc nunc et usque in sáeculum. (The Tract of Laetare Sunday, Psalm 124, 1-2)

Tract They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Sion: he shall not be moved for ever that dwelleth in Jerusalem. V. Mountains are round about it: so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth now and for ever.

As Charles Cole noted in his post yesterday, there is a particularly nice word-painting effect in this tract, in the way the notes are arranged to rise and fall on the word “mountains”, similar in spirit to the one we noted last week in the Communio of the Third Sunday of Lent.

The same text set as a very nice motet by the Slovene composer Jacob Handl (1550-91), also known as Jacobus Gallus.

Cardinal Zen, Motets, the Ordinariate, Converts, and Dominican Chant

What do these diverse topics have to do with one another? They’re the topics of the latest episodes of Square Notes: The Sacred Music Podcast.

Catch up on episodes here on YouTube, or on our podcast feed. 

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Interviews with Catholic Composers — (5) Nicholas Wilton

Today I resume the series of interviews with Catholic composers, albeit this time in a different format. NLM is grateful to Louie Verrecchio for giving permission to republish a recent interview he did with British composer Nicholas Wilton. I am especially delighted to present this composer’s work, as he and I share a compact disc of choral music: “Divine Inspirations,” sung by Cantiones Sacrae of Scotland, featuring 13 pieces by Wilton and 13 by me. It can be purchased here.

Interviewer’s Introduction. Over the course of several days in December, I had the opportunity to interview a rather unique man by the name of Nicholas Wilton; a composer of sacred liturgical music, whose CD recordings I had recently obtained. As most of our readers are well aware, words alone cannot do justice to the beauty of good sacred music; it has to be heard, or better said, it must be experienced. Such is the case with Mr. Wilton’s work. It is truly magnificent. Upon hearing it, I recalled having read a statement made by Cardinal Ratzinger in his book, Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press, 2000), which I read several times in the years shortly after its publication. He said something to the effect that the generations following the promulgation of the Novus Ordo are the first in the history of the Church not to create their own sacred music. His point, which speaks to the emptiness of the protestantized rite, is well taken. It is, however, incorrect, and Nicholas Wilton is living proof. This is one of the reasons that I was genuinely excited about the prospects of interviewing Mr. Wilton for The Catholic Inquisitor and being able to invite readers to enjoy and support his work; after all we share the same purpose – the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

LV: Tell us a little about your personal history.

NW: I was born in 1959 in Hampstead, London. My mother was German and Catholic, and my father was English and not Catholic, although he converted to the Catholic Faith later on. My earliest musical memory was of my mother singing Mozart songs to me. Mozart’s music influenced me as a young child and I regard his influence on my music as a happy one as I regard Mozart to be the divine Child of Music.

LV: “The divine Child of Music.” I’ve never heard that expression. Can you explain it?

NW: The term is my own. I believe that Mozart was chosen by God Himself at the time to write music of exceptional grace and beauty. His gift or talent was from God, so the term “divine” is appropriate. No, I am not claiming that Mozart is God! Hence, “divine” rather than “Divine.” Of course, God also helped Mozart with the music he wrote. In other words, Mozart was, as J.R.R Tolkien termed it, a divinely inspired sub-creator. His melodies are very often child-like in their simplicity, so I term him the divine Child of Music who had also the very beautiful name, Amadeus.

LV: Tell us something of your early exposure to sacred music and how it affected you.

NW: My earliest exposure to sacred music was at the local Redemptorist church where a fair bit of plainsong was sung. I rather liked it and it seemed to be a very important part the Latin Mass as it then was - with bells and incense adding to the sense of the sacred. However, in the 1960s a lot of the Latin music simply vanished and was replaced by what one can only describe as pop music. “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind” which we were made to sing struck me as odd because I had been taught that the Church had the answer already.

LV: What impact did the liturgical devastation of the 1960s have on your Catholic faith?

NW: Though I was just learning how to write piano music at the time and not yet composing sacred music, I stopped attending Mass in the 1970s when guitars and flutes were introduced to accompany what I recognized, even at that young age, as extremely banal music.

LV: Was it around this time that you began to write sacred choral music?

NW: No. I carried on learning the piano and trying to write well for the instrument. It was only later when I was studying for a music degree at London University that I was exposed to traditional Latin sacred choral music. I discovered Thomas Tallis at the age of eighteen and was fascinated by his forty-part motet Spem in Alium. Even though I was still writing mainly for the piano, I listened to it often at night in the dark to try to learn from it. It was around this time that I was told about the London Oratory. By then, years had passed since I had last been to Mass, but I decided to pay the Oratory a visit. I was impressed by the choir which regularly sang traditional music from the sixteenth century such as Byrd, Palestrina and Victoria, as well as many others. I started attending regularly and rather had the idea to write for the choir, having just completed a course in “chorestration”- or composing for choir - at the Guildhall School of Music.

LV: Just to be clear, the London Oratory, at least at that time, was celebrating the Novus Ordo in Latin. Is that Correct?

NW: Yes, that’s correct.

LV: Did you eventually write any pieces for the London Oratory?

NW: Yes. I composed a setting of In manus tuas, Domine in 1989 and showed it to the Director of Music, who liked the piece and agreed to perform it. The first performance was a success. This rather encouraged me to write more pieces for the choir including three Benediction pieces which were duly sung at Benediction as well as a setting of Cor meum for the feast of St Philip Neri.

LV: You say that the “performance was a success.” Would it be fair to say that words like “performance” and “success,” when used in reference to sacred liturgical music, necessarily refer to a work that gives glory to God and elevates to the soul to Him; a different meaning than when applied to secular or profane music?

NW: Yes. What I meant was that the piece was sung very beautifully and the choirmaster of the time, the late John Hoban, who gave the first performance at the London Oratory, congratulated me on the piece afterwards and said it was “very fine.” Secular music can also be performed or played well. Secular or profane music can also be well performed and assisted by God if one is His sub-creator. After all, He said “Without me you can do nothing.”

LV: Following your initial success in gaining performances of your early motets, did you find a publisher?

NW: No. I found that publishers were not interested in printing traditional Latin settings, so I decided that I would publish the music myself.

LV: Was this difficult to do?

NW: No. I managed to track down a music engraver who engraved music in the traditional way at that time. Then it was just a matter of having the music printed by a good music printer and, of course, paying for the production.

LV: What led you to begin composing for the traditional Mass?

NW: I discovered that a very old priest, Monsignor Gilbey, said a low Mass at the London Oratory on most mornings. The first time I attended this Mass, I felt that I had come home. I attended each day that I could for about three years, and made quite a few traditionally-minded friends. Shortly after this I started to conduct a small schola for the pre-1955 Mass at Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, in London. There was a fair bit of plainsong that we had to sing, but I wanted to introduce more polyphony, so I composed some pieces for particular feasts; for example, Beata viscera Mariae for the feast of the Divine Maternity. As not all of the singers were very good, I quickly decided to write music that would be easy to learn quickly and could be sung well by an average Catholic choir. Often, there were no true tenors available, so I began writing tenor lines which would be possible for a baritone to sing. This ended up being a good idea as it allows my sacred choral music to be sung widely and not just by professional choirs.

Felix Namque (at 4'39")

LV: Having “come home,” as you say, did you continue to attend the Novus Ordo in Latin at the London Oratory?

NW: I did, but only for a bit. It wasn’t long before I decided to walk away from the new Mass and to attend the traditional Mass exclusively from then on.

LV: So, you continued to compose for the pre-1955 Mass at Corpus Christi in London?

NW: For a time, but at a certain point, the traditional Mass at Maiden Lane was suppressed, so I no longer had an opportunity to conduct a choir and write new pieces for it, but I continued accepting commissions and composing more motets.

LV: On your CD Sacred Choral Music, sung by Magnificat, there is a setting of Panis angelicus for high voice and organ which sounds rather operatic. Can you tell us how this piece came to be written?

NW: Across the road from me lived an opera singer, Julian Gavin. I was used to hear him singing vocal exercises and decided to do something a little different and wrote my Panis angelicus to suit his voice and wide range. The piece, about the Blessed Sacrament, is dedicated to the Martyrs of Devon and Cornwall of 1549. These martyrs rebelled against the Protestant service which was forced upon them at the time, but unfortunately they didn’t have good leadership and so very many Catholics were martyred including a priest who was hanged from a church steeple in his Mass vestments.

LV: Tell us a little about how your sacred choral CD came about.

NW: In the late 1990s at the Oratory I made a friend who offered to pay for a CD to be made of fourteen of my pieces. I rang up the director of the acclaimed English choir, Magnificat, who agreed to perform and record the pieces. My first thought was that it might help sheet music sales, but it turned out so well that I decided to release it in its own right by my publishing and record company, Philangelus. The recording was very well received and continues to sell well.

LV: If readers wish to buy a copy of your CD how can they best do this?

NW: There is an Australian company - Four Marks Music, which supports traditional, Catholic composers. The sell both my Sacred Choral Music CD as well as Music for Piano. Downloads of both CDs are also available for purchase for folks who prefer them. Their email address is fourmarksmusic@outlook.com and the web site is https://www.fourmarksmusic.com/.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Jerusalem Motets of William Byrd

The ancient corpus of Matins responsories that accompanies the readings from the book of Tobias this week includes one that is actually not Biblical at all, although the verse with which it is sung comes from the book of Judith. (It is repeated on some of the weekdays, including today.)

R. Tribulationes civitatum audivimus quas passae sunt, et defecimus; timor et hebetudo mentis cecidit super nos et super liberos nostros: ipsi montes nolunt recipere fugam nostram; * Domine, miserere. V. Peccavimus cum patribus nostris, injuste egimus, iniquitatem fecimus. Domine, miserere.

R. We have heard of the tribulations of the cities which they have suffered, and we have grown faint; fear and dullness of mind have fallen upon us and upon our children; the very mountains will not receive our flight; o Lord, have mercy. V. We have sinned with our fathers we have done unjustly, we have committed iniquity; o Lord, have mercy.

Folio 98v of the Antiphonary of Compiègne, also known as the antiphonary of Charles the Bald, 860-77 AD, with the texts of three antiphons from the book of Job, six responsories and three antiphons from the book of the Tobias, and the first two from the book of Judith, the second of which is Tribulationes civitatum; all of these are used in the month of September. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 17436) – The original corpus for Tobias included only these six responsories, which cover the first two nocturns of Sunday Matins; responsories for the third nocturn, including Tribulationes civitatum, were usually supplied from those assigned to other books.

This was beautifully set as a motet by the composer William Byrd, but with modifications to the text, which is no longer structured as a responsory. The words “Domine, ad te sunt oculi nostri, ne pereamus” are inserted from one of the responsories of the following month which accompany the books of the Maccabees, and the last part is completely changed, also borrowed in part from one of the Maccabee responsories.

Tribulationes civitatum audivimus quas passae sunt, et defecimus; Domine, ad te sunt oculi nostri, ne pereamus; timor et hebetudo mentis cecidit super nos et super liberos nostros: ipsi montes nolunt recipere fugam nostram; Domine, miserere. Nos enim pro peccatis nostris haec patimur; aperi oculos tuos, Domine, et vide afflictionem nostram. (We have heard of the tribulations of the cities which they have suffered, and we have grown faint; o Lord, to Thee do we look, lest we perish; fear and dullness of mind have fallen upon us and upon our children; the very mountains will not receive our flight; o Lord, have mercy; for we suffer these things for our sins, open Thy eyes, o Lord, and see our affliction.)

This is one of three works known collectively as ‘the Jerusalem motets’, written by the Catholic Byrd in response to the intensification of anti-Catholic persecution in England under Queen Elizabeth I. The “city” in each case is the Catholic Church, and the pleas to the Lord for mercy are made collectively, in the plural, which it to say, on behalf of all the persecuted. The second motet is purely Biblical, taken from Isaiah 64, 9-10.

Ne irascaris, Domine, satis, et ne ultra memineris iniquitatis nostrae; ecce, respice, populus tuus omnes nos. Civitas Sancti tui facta est deserta, Sion deserta facta est, Jerusalem desolata est. – Be not very angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our iniquity: behold, see, we are all thy people. The city of thy sanctuary is become a desert, Sion is made a desert, Jerusalem is desolate.

The third, Vide, Domine, has only a few words taken directly from a liturgical text, “veni, Domine, et noli tardare”, from one of the responsories of Advent.

Vide, Domine, afflictionem nostram, et in tempore maligno ne derelinquas nos. Plusquam Hierusalem facta est deserta civitas electa; gaudium cordis nostri conversum est in luctum, et jocunditas nostra in amaritudinem conversa est; sed veni, Domine, et noli tardare, et revoca dispersos in civitatem tuam. Da nobis, Domine, pacem tuam diu desideratam, pax sanctissima, et miserere populi tui gementis et flentis, Domine. Deus noster. – See our affliction, o Lord, and do not forsake us in the evil time. More than Jerusalem, the chosen city hath become desert; the joy of our heart is turned to mourning, and our delight to bitterness; but come, o Lord, and tarry not, and recall the scattered ones into thy city. Grant us, O Lord, thy peace, long desired, (o most holy peace), and have mercy on thy mourning, weeping people, o Lord our God.

Byrd’s collaborator Thomas Tallis was a generation older; having grown up in the Catholic Church before the many woes inflicted upon it by the impiety and avarice of the English monarchs, he remained a Catholic all his life. From the liturgical texts of the same period, he drew the words of one of the most famous motets of all time, very much on the same theme, the Spem in alium for forty voices. In the Office, it is sung as a responsory with the book of Esther in the last week of September, but it is another ecclesiastical composition, not an exact citation of any Biblical text.

Spem in alium nunquam habui praeter in te, Deus Israel, qui irasceris et propitius eris, et omnia peccata hominum in tribulatione dimittis. Domine Deus, creator caeli et terrae, respice humilitatem nostram. – I have never had hope in any other but in Thee, o God of Israel, who grow wroth, and art merciful, and forgivest all the sins of men in (their) tribulation. O Lord God, creator of heaven and earth, look upon our lowliness.